Why is Cannabis illegal?

Cannabis wasn’t always illegal. In fact, in the late 1830’s
Sir William Brooke O’Shaughnessy, an Irish doctor studying in India,
documented that cannabis extracts could ease stomach pain and vomiting.
In the 19th century, Americans and Europeans could buy cannabis extracts
in pharmacies and doctors’ offices to help with stomach aches, migraines,
inflammation, insomnia, and other ailments.

Despite its medical effects, Americans’ attitudes towards cannabis
shifted due to Mexican immigration to the U.S. around the time of the
1910 Mexican Revolution. Eric Schlosser, author of “Reefer Madness:
Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market” had the
greatest effect on turning people’s views of cannabis. He used the
Mexican Revolution to twist the usefulness of marijuana into a dangerous,
foreign drug that induced crime and fear.

“The prejudices and fears that greeted these peasant immigrants also
extended to their traditional means of intoxication: smoking marijuana,”
Schlosser wrote for The Atlantic in 1994. “Police officers in Texas
claimed that marijuana incited violent crimes, aroused a ‘lust for
blood,’ and gave its users ‘superhuman strength.’ Rumors
spread that Mexicans were distributing this ‘killer weed’
to unsuspecting American schoolchildren.”

These accusations were just that,
accusations. Research has shown alcohol to be more dangerous than marijuana. Cannabis
doesn’t really cause superhuman strength, and the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration’s fact sheet on the drug says that “No death
from overdose of marijuana has been reported.”

The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was instilled and banned cannabis nation-wide
despite objections from the American Medical Association related to medical
usage. This act came just a year after the film Reefer Madness warned
parents that drug dealers would invite their teenagers to jazz parties
and get them hooked on “reefer.”